In today’s ever changing work climate, it is extremely important that healthcare facilities ensure the safety of their employees. Since nurses spend so much time with patients, situations where patients are stressed, uncomfortable, or frustrated can lead to unsafe or potentially life-threatening patient-nurse interactions. This safety risk for nurses needs to be taken seriously.

It is impossible for security guards to be around every minute and respond immediately to dangerous situations. Furthermore, there may not be much time between an initial threat and a full-scale assault. To truly protect staff members, a facility needs a solution that can alert others the moment a situation escalates out of control. An RTLS duress system is a type of wireless security solution that enables an immediate response during a security emergency by instantly locating the specific employee under duress.

The majority of assaults on health care workers are initiated by patients or visitors; most frequently while nurses are triaging, restraining or subduing patients. Installing a Staff Safety & Duress System is your first step to keeping everyone safe.

What are the top three things to know about staff safety & duress?

1. Location certainty is critical

The importance of location certainty is critical when selecting a Staff Safety & Duress system. Why? Because when staff needs assistance, you need to be able to find them. Quickly! Location certainty pinpoints their exact location at room level, not floor level.

  • Floor Level—Provides a general location of a person in an area or unit.
  • Room Level—Provides the ability to pinpoint a staff’s location to a specific room or space. Time is of the essence and knowing where they are is critical

2. Report frequency must be optimized

How often the badge reports the location of staff to the duress system is a critical component to ensuring staff safety. The frequency of reporting allows security to quickly and accurately locate staff when they are in a duress situation. A system that reports every 6 seconds is the optimal report frequency.

3. Visibility is key

When the signal from the duress system floods the room with infrared technology, it makes the badge easier to pick up the signal when staff needs assistance. Other systems have line-of-sight limitations, where the badge needs to be pointed directly towards the beacon when staff needs assistance. In the event that a staff member is in a dangerous situation behind closed doors, it is imperative that when they press the button for help, the system is still able to detect the signal and the badge is communicating their location.

Benefits of reducing workplace violence and improving staff safety

  • Reduce work time and healthcare expenses when a staff member is injured

  • Increase employee morale

  • Retain staff and not lose them other departments, other hospitals or have them leave the profession entirely

  • Avoid work compensation claims and liability lawsuits

  • Maintain the hospital’s reputation for future patients and prospective employees

Embrace the future of healthcare with Convergint

Contact an expert today to learn how Convergint can help integrate real-time location systems (RTLS) within your existing infrastructure to provide a safe and secure healthcare environment. Download the whitepaper to learn more about planning your Staff Duress RTLS project.

A global leader in systems integration

Convergint leverages technology to deliver clinical and operational solutions to improve workflow and enhance the patient experience in healthcare environments. This is done by bringing together best in class technology solutions into a whole to ensure all of the technology subsystems function together maximizing the value of the overall solution: clinically, operationally, and financially. Said simply, Convergint makes technology work better.

Contact Convergint’s team of healthcare experts today.